January 06, 2014

Republican Liz Cheney is dropping her bid to become a Senator from the State of Wyoming. She was attempting to challenge popular incumbent Republican Mike Enzi for the nomination. The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney shocked the Republican establishment in Wyoming with her bitter attack on the incumbent and bold attempt to cash in on the family name.

Ms. Cheney is citing 'family reasons' for her departure from the race.

That use of family by her is just hysterical since she had zero problem dividing her own family for her naked power grab.

In announcing her bid, she ignored her married lesbian sister and came out against marriage equality. Her sister Mary Cheney fought back and said it was outrageous that her sister would diminish her marriage. The race did cause deep divisions within the family several months ago

At the time those divisions did not seem to affect Ms. Cheney as she continued to push her anti-marriage equality positions. Now that the polls are showing that she is a sure loser, she is pretending to care about the unity of the family In fact, she is using the pain she cause the sister as the reason for departure.

Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself and really spend some time boning up on the meaning of family values. Families are places of love are not a political tool you use to hurt others and then conveniently rediscover them when you need an excuse for your own losing race.

December 30, 2013

Who ever thought that Republican United States Senator Ted Cruz of Texas would spawn a bunch of 'mini-me's' around American? There are at least five major races of where acolytes of Cruz's are running for office in 2014.

Of all of the upstarts challenging Republican senators in 2014, something about Chris McDaniel makes him stand out from the rest. It may be his way of speaking, sort of Ted Cruz-meets-Joel Osteen-meets-Bill Clinton, a folksy, freedom-loving, doom filled warning for Mississippians that their way of life is disappearing on Thad Cochran’s watch. “The Republic is in trouble,” he said when he announced his run for the Senate. “You sense it. Millions of people feel like strangers in their land.”

The 41-year-old state senator also stands out for the support he’s gotten from Washington-based conservative groups at odds with the Senate Republican leadership. Within hours of Cochran’s announcement that he’d run for reelection, McDaniel had picked up endorsements from the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Senate Conservatives Fund, Tea Party Express, and The Madison Project, making him the only candidate so far to receive all five.

Finally, as a lawyer and former nationally-syndicated talk radio host, McDaniel also stands out for the whistle-clean blows he delivers to anything he says isn’t expressly granted by the Constitution. Obamacare? “Kill the bill,” he told AFR Talk Radio. Increase the debt ceiling? “No chance.” His approach to legislating in Mississippi and D.C.? “No compromises, no surrenders.”

The Madison Project calls McDaniel the easiest challenger to get behind in 2014, in part because of his “uninfringeable desire to storm the castle,” a quality that could help him fit right in alongside now-veteran castle-stormers Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee if he makes it to D.C.

2. Milton Wolf

This 42-year-old radiologist is another favorite of Tea Party activists, in part because of the irony that the conservative doctor, who is running on an anti-Obamacare platform, is also a distant cousin of President Obama’s Kansas family.

With that distinction to his name, the one-time Rice County cow-milking champion is now running in the GOP primary against three-term incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts, a plain-talking conservative himself whom Wolf tags as insufficiently willing to go up against the party leadership when circumstances demand it.

Wolf, who has been endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund and Madison Project, told Pajamas media that he’s a reluctant rebel against the machine. “I wish I didn’t have to do this … Our party let the country down.” But he added that Ted Cruz inspired him to believe Republicans can be different. “I was so proud of him, to see him in that 21-hour filibuster, that gave me great hope.”

3. Ben Sasse

Despite having degrees from Harvard (undergrad) and Yale (Ph.D.), a job as the country’s youngest college president, and a resume full of tours in the George W. Bush administration, Sasse (pronounced Sass) describes himself as a “right-wing conservative.” The Weekly Standard calls the polished 41-year old a “virtuoso,” while a number of Tea Party groups, including the Senate Conservatives Fund, have picked him as their favorite to replace the retiring Nebraska senator Mike Johanns in the crowded GOP primary.

Even with all of those accolades to his name, it may be his inadvertent feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that has endeared Sasse the most to right-of-center activists, who see Sasse as a potential ideas factory along the lines of Paul Ryan (“but more conservative,” says one), who has also endorsed him. After producing a campaign video calling on “every Republican in Washington, starting with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to show some actual leadership,” Sasse reportedly got an earful from McConnell and his aides at a Washington meet-and-greet. Although neither has confirmed the row, the episode has become the stuff of legend for activists looking for a few good men to take on The Man.

4. Joe Miller

If Joe Miller looks familiar, he should. The 46-year-old Yale-trained lawyer and West Point grad ran for and won Alaska’s GOP primary in 2010, defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski on a wave of Tea Party energy and a Sarah Palin endorsement. But Miller became the first Senate nominee in more than 50 years to lose the subsequent general election to a write-in candidate: Lisa Murkowski.

Miller is back again for a 2014 GOP primary, this time to take on Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Begich. If he makes it to Washington this time, Miller says he would join what he considers the “Liberty Caucus” helmed by Ted Cruz. “I would absolutely be hand-in-hand with both he and Mike Lee, Rand Paul and the work that they’re doing.”

Democrats are quietly crossing their fingers for a Miller victory in the primary, believing that any Tea Partier who managed to lose in Tea Party-fueled 2010 will be a sure thing to lose again. Miller’s ill-fated general election run was marred by disorganization, highlighted by a bizarre episode in which Miller’s private security firm handcuffed a reporter for The Alaska Dispatch, an online news site, when the reporter tried to question Miller at a town hall meeting.

5. Matt Bevin

If any Washington pol embodies Goliath for the Tea Partiers’ vision of their Davidian struggle against the powers that be, it’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the googly-eyed yet ruthless power broker who is up for reelection in his home state of Kentucky. Enter Matt Bevin, the 46-year-old businessman who runs his family’s bell company and announced this year he would take on McConnell in the state’s GOP primary. Although Bevin has struggled to make a major impact in either fundraising or polling since his announcement, national Tea Partiers and the Senate Conservatives Fund have nonetheless flocked to Bevin’s candidacy as a way to push McConnell to the right and successfully keep the renowned dealmaker on the sidelines of his own leadership.

Even if Bevin fails to pick McConnell off in the primary, he will have succeeded as part of a Tea Party strategy to support a challenge, any challenge, to a Republican incumbent as a way to keep GOPers on notice that the days of Republican lawmakers running unnoticed and unopposed are over.

December 28, 2013

With Democratic Senator Tim Johnson retiring, South Dakota was the possibility of a strong pickup for the Republicans in their attempt to take back the United States Senate. That goal just became more difficult when former South Dakota Republican Senator Larry Pressler announced that he would be running as an 'independent' in the 2014 race.

Turned out of the Senate after three terms by Tim Johnson in 1996, Pressler will run for the same seat 18 years later.

“Today, I am announcing that I am running for the United States Senate, and I intend to win,” Pressler said.

But Pressler, 71, a lifelong Republican who was in the GOP for his entire time in Congress, won’t be in that party’s crowded primary. Instead, he’d run as an independent, giving voters next November a third choice between presumed Democratic nominee Rick Weiland and the Republicans’ top candidate.

“I want to ... end the poisonous bipartisan deadlock in Washington,” Pressler said this week.

Long a moderate Republican, Pressler broke with his own party in the past several years. He endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008 and 2012. Today, he says he’s a “deficit hawk” who wants to balance the budget in part by cutting back on foreign military spending. That includes canceling unneeded weapons projects and closing some overseas bases.

“Congress is building all kinds of weapons that the Pentagon says we don’t need anymore,” Pressler said.

December 19, 2013

-Didn't take long for the Republican candidate in Maine to start 'gay-baiting' the Democratic nominee who recently came out. In the race for Governor, Republican Erick Bennett called Democratic Congressman Mike Michaud a 'closet homo'.

-Public Policy Polling has a new national poll released this week. It shows Chris Christie leading Hillary Clinton by 45% to 42%. Clinton defeats all other possible Republican nominees by margins of five to eight points.

-Among national Republicans, Christie also leads but it is by far not a sure thing. If Mike Huckabee enters, Christiecould have some problems. Huckabee has the highest 'favorable rating of any Republican with 65% of them loving him. Christie's 'favorble' rating is just 47%. The poll shows:

-The latest Public Policy Poll (PPP) brings the news that the Democrats are on the verge of defeating Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. The latest has Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes leading by just one point in a 43% to 42% race!

-The same poll has good news for McConnell in that he currently leads his Tea Party challenger, Matt Bevin, by 53% to 26%. The leader is still now out of the woods since conservative Republicans in the state say they want someone more 'conservative' than McConnell by a margin of 55% to 33%.

-The minimum raise might be the secret issue for Democrats in Kentucky as voters want to increase it by a margin of 54% to 33%.

-We might pick up a Governor's seat in Florida. Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott's own poll shows him behind new Democrat Charlie Crist 49% to 45%. What is tough for the Scott is that the poll is his own internal poll!

-Incumbent Republican Congressman Frank R. Wolf has decided not to seek re-election in Virginia. He has served for 34 years. The District went for Romney by just 1 point so it could be a pickup for Democrats next year.

-Off setting the good news out of Virginia is the bad news for Democrats in Utah. Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson has announced that he won't run for re-election. This district gave Mitt Romney 67% of the vote so it doesn't look good for the Dems to hold this seat.

-Finally, there is more good news for Dems with Republican retirements. Congressman Tom Latham of Iowa is hanging up his political career. The newly open seat went for Obama in 2012 by four points so the Dems could have a pickup with this seat!

-Pennsylvania looks good for the Dems to pick up another Governorship next year. Incumbent Republican Governor Corbett is seriously trailing in the new Quinnipiac Poll. Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz is leading him by 45% to 37%.

-Looks good for Dems to hold the Iowa seat of retiring Senator Tom Harkin. Congressman Bruce Braley is leading all Republican challengers for the seat.

-Politico is reporting that a new poll shows that incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Pryor from Arkansas is now trailing his Republican challenger Congressman Tom Cotton by 7 points!

-Another state where Democrats appear to have an uphill battle is Michigan. In the race to fill the seat of the retiring Democratic Senator, Republican Terri Lynn Land holds a 2 point lead over Democrat Gary Peters in the latest PPP.

-Congress has a new Congresswoman in Massachusetts State Senator Katherine Clark who was elected in a special election to fill the seat of now Senator Ed Markey.

-According to PPP, United States Democratic Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina is in a very tight election race. She is running dead even with all possible Republican opponents!

-A CBS News Poll shows that a year after the Newtown school massacre that 49% of Americans still want stricter gun control laws while 12% want less strict laws. The rest want to keep the laws as they are currently in the books.

-In the latest Pan Atlantic SMS Group poll, openly gay Congressman Mike Michaud is leading in the race to defeat incumbent Republican Governor Paul LePage by just 1 point! A third party candidate is taking 18.3% of the vote.

-That same poll asked voters if it matter to them that Mike Michaud is gay and a whopping 86.2% said they could care less. Only 9.3% said it made them less likely to vote for the Democrat. Of course, all those voters were Republicans!

-Quinnipiac University Poll has just released new national numbers for 2016. In the race for the Republican nomination here are the figures:

-North Carolina looks again to be a close race in 2016. At the moment Hillary trails Christie by 3 points. She narrowly leads all other Republicans. In the race for the Republican Presidential nomination.

December 10, 2013

The Lone Star State never disappoints in its ability to bring total insane craziness to American politics. They love to attempt to live their historical image of cowboys and to this day are looking for someone to lasso and hurt. Texas politics is getting more absurd with each passing day. The only bright spot is Wendy Davis running for Governor.

What is new in Texas?

Well one of the most conservative United States Senators Republican John Cornyn has been deemed 'too liberal' and not a strong enough supporter of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. As a result, Congressman Steve Stockman has decided to challenge Cornyn in the Republican primary. The incumbent Senator has been horrible on human rights, the environment, healthcare and education but he is 'too liberal' for Texas Republicans.

How about Stockman?

Perhaps he can best be summed up by this one quote from Twitter, "The best thing about earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas comes out". He has compared President Obama to Saddam Hussein.

In the Republican race for Governor, you will find another crazy seeking the nomination. Larry Kilgore is running on having Texas secede from the Union. Among his other platform idea from over the years has been the death penalty for LGBT Americans. Don't feel that the man is just picking on our community since he also advocates the same punishment for abortion and adultery. After all, it is mandated in the Bible.

December 09, 2013

-God help us! Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water, Donald Trump once again raises his head. Now the billionaire Tea Party Republican is thinking of challenging Governor Andrew Cuomo. Lets hope he does so he can finally be wiped out at the ballot box!

-Will this be a first? Air Force One could carry four Presidents on one plane as it heads to the funeral of Nelson Mandela. President Obama, President George W. Bush and President Clinton will all be on the plane. President Carter is expected to join them.

-MSNBC has an article saying that the United States Senate races in the South could determine the control of that body in 2014. The four Senate races are in Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana.

-Every two years exactly about this time Centrist Democrats start wailing that the Democratic Party is too left. This year they have to factor in tough progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren who is hitting back hard against such nonsense!

-FireDogLake.comhas an interesting article on Governor Christie's lobbying before he became Governor. This promises to be just the opening salvo as people finally take a close look at Christie's past and record.

-While we are chatting about Christie, Politico says Democrats are already digging deep into his record including his famous bullying of others in public. Every explosion in public is being carefully being preserved for future use politically. My guess is it isn't only the Dems digging deep into Christie's record but also right wing Republicans.

-Republican Tea Party types are going crazy at the nice comments from both Gingrich and Senator Cruz about Nelson Mandela. They are livid that the two would praise a former Communist and revolutionary. Racism is never more than two steps away.

-Public Policy Polling (PPP) has taken a poll in the Land of Lincoln and finds out they don't really love Oprah! Only 44% of voters in her home state view here favorably while 48% don't like the billionaire talk show host.

-The same poll shows that Illinois still remains mostly a moderate Republican state. In the 2016 race for the Republican nomination, it is a Christie state.

Christie 18% Cruz 13% Bush 12% Paul 10% Ryan 7% Walker 7%

-The Washington Examiner says that born again former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is considering another run for the Presidency. He passed in 2012 but now seems ready to hit the campaign trail.

-Incumbent Republican Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran in a surprise move has decided to seek re-election. The 76 year old Senator faces a strenuous primary challenge from Tea Party Republican State Senator Chris McDaniel. Cochran has raised almost no money to take on his well-funded primary challenger. The Senator has less then a million in the bank.

-Governor Jerry Brown in the latest Field Poll has a 41 point lead over his closet Republican challenger in 2014.

-Right wing Rev. E.W. Jackson who lost his race for Lt. Governor of Virginia by 11 points has formed a new PAC in the state. One of the main goals of the effort is to defeat pro-LGBT actions in the Old Dominican State.

-The New York Post has an article saying that President Obama and Congressman Charles Rangel can't stand each other.

-This bit of news is classic. It seems as if the Republican National Committee is holding classes, yes that is right classes, to teach Republican candidates how not to offend women. Really? Do they actually need to be taught the issues of concern to women voters?

December 04, 2013

In what might become the most unique ad in politics this coming year, Democratic Senator turns to the Bible in his latest ad. You might think you were watching an ad to push for a Christian Broadcasting Network Christmas special. Will be interesting to watch the action to this ad. Is the next ad one that chooses between the Old and New Testament?

The next election cycle in 2014 could be very tough for the Democratic Party. Most of the Senate seats up for re-election are in solid 'red states'. Democratic incumbents are in danger in such states as North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana. A seat held by the Democrats but now 'open' is in Montana and looks likely to go Republican.

However, the National Journal is an insightful article by Shane Goldmacher examines that possibility that women could be the saving grace of the Democratic Party in 2014.

The Democratic Party is hoping 2014 will be a Year of the Woman—again.

As party operatives prepare for the 2014 midterm elections, Democratic women are being cast in starring roles, on the ballot and at the ballot box, as the party tries to take back politically important governor's mansions and keep its fragile majority in the Senate.

"The importance of women to the Democratic Party in 2014 cannot be overstated," said Jess McIntosh, a spokeswoman for EMILY's List, which recruits and supports Democratic women candidates. "They are running in our biggest, most important races in the country."

Obama rode to reelection in 2012 with strong support from female voters, and Democrats gained seats in the Senate and House thanks in part to prominent Republican stumbles over rape and abortion.

Now, Democrats are pushing to carry over that 2012 "gender gap" to 2014, hoping the support of female voters will shore up the party amid a traditionally tough political atmosphere of a presidential midterm and the rocky debut of Obama's health care law. They believe the slate of prominent women on the 2014 ballot will make the contrast with Republicans all the clearer.

Wendy Davis In Texas

There is Davis in Texas, who captured the hearts of liberals nationwide with her standing filibuster to block an anti-abortion law and is now running for governor. Burke and Schwartz are two of the Democrats running to oust incumbent conservative GOP governors, in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, respectively.

In the Senate, two of the four most endangered Democratic incumbents, Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, are women. Tennet is trying to keep Democrats' hold on a tough West Virginia seat. And Nunn and Grimes are the party's lone shots are picking up Republican-held seats, with Grimes trying to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in one of 2014's marquee matchups.

Most of these female candidates are running in tough places, red states Mitt Romney won, or against entrenched incumbents. They aren't favored to win—and many may end up on the 2014 political scrap heap—but party operatives believe they give Democrats the best shot in such hostile political territory.

"The 2012 election showed that we have problems with female issues," said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist. "There is a widespread recognition by Republican strategists that this needs to change—as soon as possible." T

he recent victory of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor's race showed that issues of abortion and contraception remain salient. McAuliffe bombarded the airwaves on those topics en route to running up his margin of victory among unmarried women voters to 42 percentage points, according to exit polling.

"It's a deep problem for the Republicans," said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The Supreme Court's announcement last week that it will take up a case about whether employers may refuse to provide contraceptive coverage means that the volatile issue of birth control again will be injected in the midst of the 2014 campaign. The case will be decided in the middle of next year.

Democrats have made plain that the "war on women" playbook will be key to their efforts to unseat McConnell. Last week, Grimes rolled out the endorsement of Lilly Ledbetter, the namesake of the pay-equity law signed by Obama, and her campaign issued a memo on women's issues, noting that Grimes is an "advocate for women" and would be "Kentucky's first female United States senator."

Meanwhile, in a November memo, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's Matt Canter blasted "Team McConnell's misogyny." The DSCC and Grimes have taken umbrage with everything from the National Republican Senatorial Committee's male spokesman, Brad Dayspring, calling Grimes an "empty dress" to the NRSC's tweeting a link to a photoshopped image of her.

"The NRSC should stand for Notoriously Repeating Sexist Comments. They cannot relate or connect with the women of Kentucky or our country," Grimes said in a statement after the latest incident.

Brook Hougesen, an NRSC spokeswoman, said the DSCC is "dangerously overreaching." "Every day, the DSCC is claiming to be offended," she said.

Of course, men also can appeal to women voters on traditionally women's issues. McAuliffe is the latest example. Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, noted that television ads about abortion, birth-control access or defunding Planned Parenthood aired in nearly every competitive congressional race last cycle, whether the contest featured a Democratic women against a Republican man, or vice versa.

"There are lots of reasons women make great candidates," Greenberg said. "It's not because they can just talk about abortion."

Still, Republicans are actively trying to appeal to women, both as candidates and as voters, to cut into the current Democratic advantage. The National Republican Congressional Committee, for instance, launched Project GROW this year to woo more women candidates. GOP strategists like to note that four of the five current female governors are Republicans. And at least some of the GOP's 2014 Senate candidates will be women, including Rep. Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia, Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, and potentially in Iowa and Georgia, as well, depending on the primaries there.

But Bonjean, the GOP strategist, said the Republican Party needs to do more than that, suggesting that GOP congressional leaders should unveil a comprehensive women's agenda.

"They need to have legislation that has a positive [message] that will help female voters in an attempt to soften their image going into the elections," he said.

December 02, 2013

The Washington Posthas an article by Zachary Goldfarb about progressives making a huge comeback in the Democratic Party. We have seen evidence of it with the election of progressive mayors in Seattle, Houston and New York City. In addition, liberals are coming together to support candidates in Democratic primaries for all sorts of local and state offices.

In New York, not only did Mayor-elect de Blasio win but so did a slate of very liberal/ progressive candidates for City Council.

Income inequality, raising the minimum wage, human rights issues, abortion, education, voting rights and equal pay for equal work are among the issues that are pushing the progressive agenda. In many ways, Occupy Wall Street has come to the ballot box.

Goldfarb writes:

For more than two years, President Obama has endorsed reducing Social Security payments as part of an ambitious deal to tame the national debt. But then Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — viewed by supporters on the left as a potential 2016 presidential candidate — embraced a far different proposal: increasing benefits for seniors.

As Obama struggles to achieve his second-term domestic agenda, a more liberal and populist voice is emerging within a Democratic Party already looking ahead to the next presidential election. The push from the left represents both a critique of Obama’s tenure and a clear challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party’s presumptive presidential front-runner, who carries a more centrist banner.

The left’s influence will be on display in coming weeks when a high-profile congressional committee formed after the government shutdown faces a deadline to forge a budget agreement. Under strong pressure from liberals, the panel has effectively abandoned discussion of a “grand bargain” agreement partly because it probably would involve cuts to Social Security.

“The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 — at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors — is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch,” Warren said recently on the Senate floor, announcing her support for a bill that would expand the program.

Liberals say Social Security is one example of how Democrats are likely to face sustained pressure in coming months to move in a more populist direction on a host of issues.

“The first Obama administration was focused too much on saving the banks and Wall Street,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a liberal who is retiring after four decades in Congress. “There’s going to be a big populist push on whoever’s running for office to espouse these kinds of progressive policies.”

Senate Democrats’ recent decision to abandon the filibuster for almost all nominees was a major victory for liberals, who had long championed the change, and paves the way for left-leaning nominees to join courts and helm agencies.

In addition, liberals have accelerated their push for a higher minimum wage — successfully persuading Obama to support a $10.10-an-hour proposal after he suggested $9 an hour this year. They also are making a case for tougher financial regulations, specifically targeting massive banks they would like to break up.

More broadly, liberals argue that the nation must do more to narrow economic inequality, to expand the safety net to help those who have lost jobs to globalization and to relieve some of the burden of student debt — goals that the president generally shares.

Obama’s defenders say he has a wide array of proposals to help the middle class that have been stymied by Republicans in Congress. Even his willingness to trim Social Security payments — by adopting a stricter formula for calculating benefits — includes protections for the poor, they note.

“It’s real things in the economy that Democrats have been too timid to address or Republicans have blocked them from addressing,” said longtime liberal activist Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future.